from the a-comic-can-of-worms dept

As you will all know, we've been covering the trademark case between San Diego Comic-Con and Salt Lake Comic Con pretty much since this whole dispute began some three years ago. From the outset, this whole thing seemed wholly unreasonable. Whatever trademarks SDCC managed to get past the USPTO, there are roughly a zillion comic cons across the country, few of which have any licensing arrangement with SDCC, meaning the plaintiff in this case hasn't bothered to enforce its trademarks for some time. That generally leads to the mark being abandoned, or considered generic. Either should have kept SLCC in the clear. Add to all that the fact that this is arguably a trademark that should never have been granted on the grounds that it's almost purely descriptive -- a "comic con" is a comic convention -- and many observers thought this was going to be an easy win for SLCC in court, including this writer.

In a case that could potentially complicate the lives of comic convention organizers the country over, a federal jury has ruled in San Diego Comic-Con’s favor in a suit brought against Salt Lake Comic Con for violating copyright law with their use of the term “comic con.” The verdict, which was arrived at on Friday afternoon, found SDCC’s trademark is valid, and that Salt Lake Comic Con used it without permission, according to a report by Fox13 in Salt Lake City.

That sound you hear in the distance is a hundred other comic convention organizers slapping their own foreheads. With this ruling, which SLCC may appeal, comic cons all over the place may feel more pressure to give in to any licensing demands from SDCC. Although, perhaps those other cons just need to run out the clock -- more on that in a minute.

I said SLCC may appeal this ruling for two reasons. First, the damages the jury awarded are almost laughably small and nowhere near what SDCC was asking for.

San Diego Comic-Con initially sought up to $12 million in damages from Dan Farr and Bryan Brandenburg, Salt Lake Comic Con’s organizers, but was rewarded only $20,000. According to the ruling, the violation was not a “willful infringement” of the copyright.

“It felt like it was a draw,” Brandenburg told Fox13. He told the news organization that he was currently considering whether or not to appeal. Additionally, Salt Lake Comic Con has proceedings underway with the US trademark office to officially cancel San Diego Comic-Con’s trademark.

And that last bit is the other reason it may not appeal and was my reference above to other cons simply running out the clock. The real misstep here might be in San Diego Comic-Con opening up this can of worms by bullying other cons over its abandoned, generic, descriptive trademark, with the potential end result being one of its victims getting that trademark cancelled entirely. Were I any other comic con in some other city in America, I would be trying to help SLCC getting this mark cancelled in any way I could. It would be a poetic end, to be sure, no matter what one jury thought of that actual case of trademark infringement.

from the fluff-and-nonsense dept

By now we've noted countless times how the claim that net neutrality hurt broadband investment is indisputably false. It's not a debate. Public SEC filings, earnings reports, and numerous CEO statements to investors (who, unlike you, they're legally not allowed to lie to) have disproven this canard. Data suggesting otherwise usually originates with ISP-paid economists more than willing to twist, distort, cherry pick and massage the numbers until they comply with whatever message is being shoveled toward the media this week.

Despite the "net neutrality-killed investment" claim being decidedly false, it never appears to die. ISPs and FCC boss Ajit Pai continue to desperately cling to this claim as if repetition forges reality itself. The claim has played a starring role in nearly every speech Pai has given on this subject, as well as every press release that has been issued by the FCC. The claim popped up yet again recently, when Ajit Pai issued a press release (pdf) claiming that he had been meeting with five small ISPs, all of which claimed that net neutrality had seriously harmed their ability to expand their broadband footprints. From the release:

"I appreciated the opportunity to speak with small providers across the country to hear how the FCC’s 2015 rules are impacting them on a day-to-day basis. One constant theme I heard was how Title II had slowed investment and injected regulatory uncertainty into their business plans--in short, heavy-handed regulation is making it harder for smaller providers to close the digital divide in rural America. By lightening the regulatory burden from Washington, we will unleash providers to do what they do best: serve their communities and provide broadband access to residents across the country."

So one, we've already noted how Pai's breathless dedication to "closing the digital divide" are consistently betrayed by his actions, whether it's his choice to make life easier for business broadband monopolies, to kill broadband programs (launched by Reagan and expanded by Bush Junior) that aid the poor, or to fiddle with broadband deployment metrics to try and obfuscate a lack of competition in the sector. Again, that Pai's biggest priority is protecting the revenues of the industry's biggest and most politically-powerful companies isn't really something that's open to debate. His voting record is very clear on this subject.

Two, while Pai tries to suggest that small ISPs are unified in their opposition to the rules, nearly thirty small ISPs have already come out in opposition to the FCC's plan. Those that support the plan tend to be helmed by partisans more interested in partisan ideological fealty than the mounting evidence that suggests the FCC's agenda is extreme and counterproductive.

That said, Pai's press release claiming that net neutrality hurt small ISPs was completely unaccompanied by any hard data. Worse, when consumer advocates went and looked at the ISPs cited by the FCC release, four out of five of them significantly expanded their broadband deployments in the wake of the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules. AirLink Internet Services in Oklahoma, one of the five ISPs cited by Pai, "more than doubled the number of rural Census blocks in which it offered service after the adoption of the [February] 2015 decision it criticizes," according to a recent FCC filing by consumer advocacy firm Free Press.

Again, the story was the same with four of the five ISPs cited by the FCC. The one ISP that didn't see significant deployment gains (Amplex Internet in Ohio), still managed to deploy gigabit fiber to an additional 18 census blocks during the time net neutrality rules were in place. Again, that's entirely according to the FCC's own data. Data the FCC refused to cite because it proved the exact opposite of the message they wanted to send:

"The data AirLink submitted to the FCC shows that it went from serving 1,482 rural Census blocks at the end of 2014 to more than 3,000 rural blocks by mid-year 2016, he wrote. The company expanded in urban Census blocks as well, going "from 4,251 such blocks to 7,108—an increase of more than 67 percent." The population served by AirLink increased by 64 percent in rural areas and 59 percent in urban areas, Wood wrote.

The ISPs' presentations were "rife with such vague statements and outright errors" but did not include any "dollar signs, deployment data, [or] any other quantifiable metric demonstrating the supposed impact of Title II," Wood wrote. "Perhaps this is because there is no quantifiable harm from Title II, only the anecdotes that these carriers provide when called upon by the Chairman," he wrote."

That's a clever way to state that the FCC's entire justification for repealing net neutrality has been based on fluff and nonsense, not hard data. When the FCC does cite data, it's usually data that originates directly from telecom lobbyists pushing for net neutrality repeal. Much like the FCC's blatant disregard for public and expert input on this proceeding, all of this will make for interesting fodder in the lawsuits coming the agency's way in the new year.

from the all-hail-the-Good-Guys dept

If you had evidence an opposing witness in a criminal trial was untrustworthy, you'd want to use it, right? Too bad says the local law enforcement union. And too bad says a California court. The issue at hand is the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department's "Brady" list. "Brady" is shorthand for exculpatory evidence and untrustworthy law enforcement officers called to provide testimony certainly falls under that heading.

After Sheriff Lee Baca resigned in disgrace following his department's implication in widespread jailhouse corruption and its tendency to hire some of the worst people possible to staff its jail, new sheriff Jim McDonnell wanted to make this list of questionable officers public. He wanted to hand it to prosecutors so they'd know which deputies to avoid if they wanted honest, untainted testimony. He didn't go so far as to offer the same list to defense attorneys, but it was one step further than any sheriff before him had taken.

The sheriff's union sued, claiming handing the Brady list to prosecutors violated state confidentiality laws. In July, the LA County Appeals Court agreed with the union. The case has been taken up by the California Supreme Court, but it won't be discussed or decided until next year. Meanwhile, the ~300 deputies whose names are on the Brady list may have been witnesses in a combined 62,000 cases since 2000. And still, nobody is allowed to access their disciplinary files.

The Los Angeles Times has obtained copies of the 2014 version of the list. (It does not say how it obtained these, so its presumably a leak.) In it are details of hundreds of acts of misconduct, all relating to "moral" issues which could conceivably be used to cast doubt on these deputies' credibility. The documents contain many more details, but this quick rundown by the Times scratches the surface of the secret Brady list. [h/t CJ Ciaramella]

One deputy on the list endangered the lives of fellow officers and an undercover informant when he warned a suspected drug dealer’s girlfriend that the dealer was being watched by police.

Another pepper-sprayed an elderly man in the face and then wrote a false report to justify arresting him.

A third pulled over a stranger and received oral sex from her in his patrol car.

The list also includes several deputies still with the department who were convicted of crimes — one for filing a false arrest report and another who was charged with domestic battery but pleaded no contest to a lesser offense. In other cases, prosecutors sharply criticized the deputies’ actions but declined to pursue criminal charges against them.

Accusations of dishonesty lead the way, composing 69% of all misconduct allegations. Dishonesty is exactly what you don't want from your prosecution witnesses, and a track record of dishonest behavior should be enough to make any testimony given suspect. Unfortunately, the documents are still officially secret, shielded from public access by California law and an appeals court decision.

But the misdeeds detailed in the document make you wonder why the LASD hasn't kicked many of these deputies to the curb. It's not just a problem for testimony in criminal cases. It's also a terrible business practice when you're in the business of serving the public. When your job is literally law enforcement, the lax internal enforcement of actual laws encourages further misconduct and abuse, and destroys your relationship with the communities you serve.

from the bang-bang dept

When we discuss the problems around "the internet of things" and app-controlled everything, we typically have to get into the weeds a bit about privacy, whether you own what you purchased, and the ethical implications of opening up an internet-connected service or product to potential hacking. On the security and hacking side of things, it should be clear by now that far too many companies don't take this stuff seriously enough. Our pages are rife with IoT devices being hacked, including everything from Barbie dolls to sports cars. It's enough to make you long for a company with a mission basic enough to develop a product so geared towards security that it couldn't possibly get this app-controlled thing wrong.

Well, how about a handgun safe? Take the Vaultek VT20i handgun safe, for instance. This safe can be opened either by inputting the user's PIN number, up to eight digits, either on the box itself or via a smartphone app. Now, you're probably wondering why someone who needs their hand-cannon would need to open the safe up with an app. It's a great question, but one we probably shouldn't worry about considering that some security researches found that you can just open that damn thing with a laptop instead, no PIN number needed.

The remote unlock feature is supposed to work only when someone knows the four- to eight-digit personal identification number used to lock the device. But it turns out that this PIN safeguard can be bypassed using a standard computer and a small amount of programming know-how.

As the video demonstration below shows, researchers with security firm Two Six Labs were able to open a VT20i safe in a matter of seconds by using their MacBook Pro to send specially designed Bluetooth data while it was in range. The feat required no knowledge of the unlock PIN or any advanced scanning of the vulnerable safe. The hack works reliably even when the PIN is changed. All that's required to make it work is that the safe have Bluetooth connectivity turned on.

Once this video and the code for the hack was released publicly, Vaultek snapped into action by releasing a statement claiming that this hack would take hours to pull off and would "require the ability to observe a correctly paired phone." To Which Two Six Labs said: "Nuh-uh!"

"Once you have developed this capability or written a script to do it, you can affect any safe in this product line in a matter of seconds," Austin Fletcher, Two Sixes Labs' lead vulnerability research engineer, told Ars. "Anyone can do this."

In a blog post disclosing the vulnerability, the researchers included most of the code required to exploit the vulnerability. A competent developer would need 20 to 60 minutes to supply the missing portion. With that, the developer could build a smartphone app that could silently break into any existing VT20i safe in seconds, as long as Bluetooth was turned on.

Now, Dustin Culbreth, VP of Product Development for Vaultek, has issued a second statement from Vaultek, promising a firmware update that will address this exploit. There are a couple of problems with that. First, despite all of the Bluetooth back-and-forth from this gun safe and Bluetooth devices, the safe isn't actually connected to the internet. So, to patch this exploit, gun owners are going to be sent a USB device and install the patch themselves (perhaps through no more effort than plugging it in, but this is unclear) or will have to ship the safe back to Vaultek to be fixed. In a world where user error is the mantra of anyone involved in supporting technology, one shudders to think so much security over a weapon would be effective only at the pleasure of the average end-user's dedication to patching their own gun safe.

And that brings me back to the question of why such an app-controlled gun safe is necessary to begin with. I know we have gun owners among our readers, so please chime in below with what I'm missing, but isn't it enough to unlock the PIN from the box instead of your phone? And, if not, is the application controlled unlocking feature worth this kind of risk?

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

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from the public-servants-still-screwing-the-people-they-serve dept

One of those things I thought would have gone out of vogue is apparently still in style in New Hampshire. The number of bullshit wiretap prosecutions brought against people recording cops has dropped precipitously over the past half-decade as courts have found use of wiretap statutes in this fashion unconstitutional, but over in the Live Free or Die state, the statute lives freely and dies even harder.

Back in 2015, prosecutors brought wiretapping charges against Alfredo Valentin. Valentin had returned home one day to find a SWAT team in the middle of a no-knock raid. Apparently, Valentin's roommate was also a heroin dealer. Valentin had been called home by a neighbor who noticed his dog wandering the street, apparently set free (and still alive!) by the SWAT team's home-breaching efforts. Valentin chose to record the officers as they proceeded with the raid despite officers telling him (wrongly) that he couldn't.

This became a wiretapping charge because the cops couldn't handle a citizen ignoring a direct order. They claimed Valentin "hid" the phone by placing it down by his leg while he kept recording. Apparently, the officers could still see the phone, so claims of it being a "secret" recording were per se moronic. But this was what the flimsy, highly-questionable charges rested on: a supposedly surreptitious recording officers in attendance knew was happening.

The settlement, which was reached in late September, was announced Wednesday by the ACLU-New Hampshire.

Lehmann said Valentin received about two-thirds of the settlement, and he will use it to get his life back together. He was arrested in March 2015. The previous year, Free State activists from New Hampshire prevailed when the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that any person has a First Amendment right to video or audio-record police officers engaged in official duties in public places.

Gilles Bissonnette, the ACLU-NH's legal director and co-counsel, said the settlement recognizes that recordings of police are a critical check on police power.

"The police need to understand that individuals who are recording their work without interference have a constitutional right to do so, and it is not cause for their arrest," Bissonnette said.

The First Amendment right exists with or without a police officer giving consent to the recording, the ACLU said.

The $275,000 settlement will hopefully help Valentin piece back together a life law enforcement officers vindictively destroyed. Following his arrest, Valentin lost his job of eleven years and has spent the past two years trying -- and failing -- to restart his career. Having a felony arrest on his record doesn't help, even if charges were ultimately dropped.

New Hampshire's wiretapping statute still stands. The state requires two-party consent for recordings. But, as has been pointed out by courts previously, the state's statute does not apply to recording public servants like police officers performing their duties in public. The state's Attorney General made this explicitly clear in the wake of the First Circuit Appeals Court's Glik decision. A memo [PDF] clarifying the right to record police was sent to law enforcement agencies in 2012, so the officers here -- and the prosecutor who chose to continue pressing charges -- had no excuse for their actions. In the process, they cost an innocent person his job and derailed his life for the better part of two years. And in the end, they'll have the bill covered by New Hampshire taxpayers and a signed agreement saying they did nothing wrong.

from the trust-and-don't-verify dept

Lawsuits have begun to pile up for broadband provider CenturyLink, after a whistleblower revealed earlier this year that the ISP had been routinely over-billing its broadband customers for years. The whistleblower, who claims she was fired after bringing the problem to company management, said the company had a multi-year habit of consistently signing customers up for services they never ordered and didn't want. Of course that's on top of the routinely-misleading billing practices we see at most giant broadband providers, most notably the habit of making up completely bogus fees to jack up the advertised price post sale.

But worry not! CenturyLink last week issued a press release stating it had investigated itself, and found that company executives were completely and utterly innocent of any wrong doing. According to CenturyLink, the company constructed a "special committee" filled with CenturyLink board members, who collectively dug through 9.7 million documents, 4.3 terabytes of billing data consisting of over 32 billion billing records -- and interviewed 200 current and former Company employees. They found, impressively, precisely what CenturyLink CEO Glen Post hoped they would:

"The Company accepts the Special Committee's findings and conclusions. The investigation confirmed my long-held belief that there was no fraud or wrongdoing at the Company and that cramming was neither widespread nor condoned. However, we know there have been times when we haven't provided our customers the experience they deserve. We have identified a number of areas where we can improve the customer experience and have already made significant progress in addressing those areas."

That's in stark contrast to what whistleblowers and numerous state investigations have so far discovered. So letting actual, independent third-party investigations determine guilt or innocence seems kind of important. What did the investigation find? It found that if there was a problem, it was due to the fact that CenturyLink's billing and pricing was somehow confusing customers:

"Some of the Company's products, pricing and promotions were complex and caused confusion, and the resulting bills sometimes failed to meet customer expectations. Additionally, limitations in the Company's ordering and billing software made it difficult to provide customers with estimates of their bills and confirmation of service letters that reflected all discounts, prorated charges, taxes and fees."

Of course CenturyLink would have you believe that this confusing pricing just magically materialized by itself accidentally. In reality, large ISPs consistently employ confusing pricing in order to make direct price comparisons between ISP bundles all but impossible. It's standard practice. Centurylink also has a nasty habit of (apparently accidentally) imposing completely misleading fees to jack up the advertised price of service. Take CenturyLink's $4 per month "Internet Cost Recovery Fee," for example, which CenturyLink explains as such on its website:

"This fee helps defray costs associated with building and maintaining CenturyLink's High-Speed Internet broadband network, as well as the costs of expanding network capacity to support the continued increase in customers' average broadband consumption."

Of course that's bullshit, and tackling the "costs of expanding network capacity" is what your regular bill is for. What the fee does accomplish is it lets CenturyLink advertise one price, then charge something else entirely. It's something broadband providers learned from the airline, banking, and other industries, and with limited competition, the "free market" mysteriously never auto-corrects the problem. And neither the FCC nor FTC have ever deemed this fairly blatant false advertising via bogus fees (which take many forms) worthy of serious inquiry.

And that's with the FCC's net neutrality rules in place, which at least required that ISPs clearly document all of this hidden nonsense to consumers at the point of sale. With those requirements about to die, and both federal and state oversight of ISPs about to be obliterated, you can expect an already-bad problem to only get worse. It's another example of how the death of net neutrality is going to have wide-reaching negative effects that go well beyond our traditional understanding of net neutrality violations. Of course if you like being nickel and dimed by your broadband ISP, the future's looking bright for you indeed.

Hundreds of cases could be reviewed after two men who work at a laboratory used by police to test drug samples were arrested.

Randox Testing Services (RTS) is used by forces across the UK to analyse samples used in prosecutions.

Police chiefs said it had been told 484 cases handled by the firm since November 2015 may have been affected.

The men, 47 and 31, were arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice and bailed, police said.

At the time, Randox offered to re-run tests handled by the two employees and provided law enforcement with a list of cases affected. The bogus tests affected far more than run of the mill driving under the influence charges. In a few cases, convictions for vehicular homicide were placed under review.

About 50 prosecutions have so far been dropped in what BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw described as "the biggest forensic science scandal in the UK for decades".

Matthew Bravender is appealing against his conviction after pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving while over the legal limit for a prescribed drug.

Since then, the estimate of affected cases has skyrocketed. The original estimate of 484 cases is now 10,000 and prosecutors have begun dropping prosecutions rather than go toe-to-toe with judges unsympathetic to their requests for extensions. It's now apparent the retests won't be completed until sometime in 2018. To make matters worse, some of the tainted tests can't be retested because the samples have been destroyed or are no longer viable.

And it's no longer just about driving under the influence charges. Randox, which has since seen its contracts with UK police forces suspended, also handled rape kits and investigations of suspicious deaths.

He also said due to "poor record-keeping practices", it may not be possible to identify all the customers affected.

This is far more than problematic. It's devastating. It mirrors multiple forensic lab issues uncovered here in the United States. Obviously, law enforcement agencies don't have the manpower to handle testing in-house. So, these are turned over to third parties. This wouldn't be an issue if there were any direct oversight. But there doesn't appear to be anything like that in place. When misconduct is finally uncovered, it has taken place for years and tainted thousands of cases.

If government agencies are sincere in their expressed concerns for public safety, these failures to head off problems before they affect 10,000-20,000 cases are inexplicable. It undermines legitimate convictions, putting criminals back on the street. It dead-ends investigations because lab results are no longer trustworthy.

Worse, it has the potential to land innocent people in jail. Faked results and mishandled tests are used as evidence in criminal trials, "proving" guilt when none exists. This is a problem everywhere, but it seems authorities are more interested in post-debacle damage control than rigorous oversight that could prevent this from happening in the first place.

from the all-together-now dept

Just a quick update from Portland, Oregon, folks. After the city engaged in some truly impish behavior by trying to bully aside a local brewery that has a trademark on Portland's iconic jumping-deer sign, there have been no further negotiations on a resolution between the two sides. See, the city of Portland really wants to license the trademark for the image of the sign to national and international macrobrewers, whereas Old Town Brewing just wants to have the same trademark rights it has legally held for that image in the alcohol industries since 2012. You might have thought that a refusal of the mark by the USPTO would have ended this story. You would be wrong.

Apparently, the city has filed multiple trademark applications in the hopes that something, anything, will get approved. This is according to a Portland hospitality industry group, which has taken notice of the city's actions and is firing off angry letters to its own mayor as a result.

The Old Town Hospitality Group, which counts 25-plus restaurants and taverns, said in a letter to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler that the city is "wasting taxpayer money." The issue relates to a trademark held by Old Town Brewing on the "leaping deer" logo, which adorns the "Portland Oregon" sign above the Burnside Bridge.

The Old Town Hospitality Group called on the city "to stop filing trademark application after trademark application for an image that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has repeatedly determined is confusing. Tell the city’s attorneys that it is wrong and an abuse of power to attempt to bury Old Town Pizza & Brewing in legal fees."

It's worth repeating that Old Town Brewing is in Portland. Its patrons, and likely its owners, are constituents of the very city actively trying to pretend its trademark doesn't exist while burying the tax-paying business in legal fees for no legitimate reason. Simply wanting really badly to license a trademark it doesn't own doesn't justify the city's actions. And, now that it's not just the brewery pushing back, but an industry group of member companies along with it, it might just be a matter of time before enough of the regular public gets wind of this and City Hall has a very real problem on its hands.

Or it could stop harrassing a local business, I suppose, but that seems like an awful lot to ask.

from the time-machine dept

Last week, Mike and I were at a conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Reno v. ACLU, a seminal case that declared that the First Amendment applied online. What makes the case so worth a conference celebrating it is not just what it meant as a legal matter – it's a significant step forward in First Amendment jurisprudence – but also what it meant as a practical matter. This decision was hugely important in allowing the internet to develop into what it is today, and that evolution may not be something we adequately appreciate. It's easy to forget and pretend the internet we know today was always a ubiquitous presence, but that wasn't always so, and it wasn't so back then. Indeed, it's quite striking just how much has changed in just two decades.

So this seemed like a good occasion to look back at how things were then. The attached paper is a re-publication of the honors thesis I wrote in 1996 as a senior at the University of California at Berkeley. As the title indicates, it was designed to study internet adoption among my fellow students, who had not yet all started using it. Even those who had were largely dependent on the University to provide them their access, and that access had only recently started to be offered on any significant a campus-wide basis. And not all of the people who had started using the internet found it to be something their lives necessarily needed. (For instance, when asked if they would continue to use the internet after the University no longer provided their access, a notable number of people said no.) This study tried to look at what influences or reasons the decision to use, or not use, the internet pivoted upon.

I do of course have some pause, now a few decades further into my career, calling attention to work I did as a stressed-out undergraduate. However, I still decided to dig it up and publish it, because there aren't many snapshots documenting internet usage from that time. And that's a problem, because it's important to understand how the internet transitioned from being an esoteric technology used only by some into a much more pervasive one seemingly used by nearly everyone, and why that change happened, especially if we want to understand how it will continue to change, and how we might want to shape that change. All too often it seems tech policy is made with too little serious consideration of the sociology behind how people use the internet – the human decisions internet usage represents – and it really needs to be part of the conversation more. Hopefully studies like this one can help with that.